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Betting Tips

Back Mumbai Indians to win (2.02 at time of writing on Betfair).

Match Overview

Mumbai won 5 of the last 8 matches between these 2 sides. This season in the league stages of the tournament Mumbai won both home and away.

In Kolkata, last Saturday Mumbai scored 173 in their 20 overs. KKR chased extremely poorly. Every batsmen was trying to finish the match quickly rather than play a big innings. They ended up losing too many wickets and only scoring 164.

In Mumbai, early in the season KKR batted first. They scored 178 thanks largely to 81 not out from Manish Pandey. Mumbai chased the total down with 1 ball to spare. The top order chipped in with runs and the Hardik Pandya finished the chase off scoring 29 from 11 balls.

Mumbai have gone off the boil after a brilliant start to the season. After losing their first match they then won 9 of their next 10 matches. This left them top of the table and guaranteed to qualify for the play-offs. They then started to tinker with the team. They have lost 3 of their last 4 matches.In Kolkata, last Saturday Mumbai made 5 changes to their side to allow squad players a chance. They won the match but it left selection headaches for Mumbai going into the Qualifier against Pune. They ended up not playing Nitish Rana and Harbhajan Singh and losing the match. In the first qualifier, the bowlers restricted Pune to 162. It would have been less if MS Dhoni had not smashed 5 sixes in the final overs. In the chase the spin of the 17 year old Washington Sundar ripped the heart out of Mumbai's innings. They ended up scoring just 142 in their 20 overs.

KKR's season has followed a similar pattern. They won 7 of their first 9 matches. They have won just 2 of their last 6. They just scraped through into the play-offs in 4th place.

KKR have had trouble with their batting. They have all been playing very aggressively with no one player being willing to dig in and play a long innings. They defeated SRH in a rain shortened match in the early hours of Wednesday. Their pace duo Umesh Yadav and Nathan Coulter-Nile bowled exceptionally on a tricky batting wicket to reduce SRH to 128 in their 20 overs. In a rain shortened reply Gautam Gambhir seized control and scored 31 of the 48 runs required to get KKR through to this match.

The Bangalore pitch has been tricky this season with around 150 being the par first innings score. This compares with 180 in previous IPLs. KKR will have the advantage of having played here on Wednesday in the match against SRH.

This match is very evenly balanced on paper. Mumbai are rated 2 points higher on the Cricsq ratings with 96 points compared to KKR's 94. KKR are currently just favorites on Betfair at 1.98. Mumbai are 2.02. I have backed Mumbai as they represent the value. They are the higher rated team and have already beaten KKR twice this season. In the Pandya brothers, they have more depth to their batting and bowling attacks.

Mumbai Indians

Batting

Lendl Simmons and Parthiv Patel open the batting for Mumbai. Parthiv is Mumbai's top run scorer with 377 runs. He has a strike rate of 136. Simmons has now played 5 matches since he replaced Jos Buttler. He has 131 runs with a strike rate of 134.

Rohit Sharma and Nitish Rana have batted at 3 and 4 for most of the season. Rohit has 283 runs with a strike rate of 125. Rana has 333 runs with a strike rate of 126. He has been out of form in recent matches.

Ambati Rayudu was given a chance in the final group match against KKR. He scored 63 from 37 balls. He then replaced the out of form Rana in the first Qualifier. Unfortunately, he was out for a duck. Mumbai need to decide if they give Rayudu or Rana another chance in this knockout match.

The Mumbai middle order consists of Kieron Pollard and the Pandya brothers. Pollard has 369 runs with a strike rate of 139. Hardik Pandya has 240 runs with a high strike rate of 159. Krunal Pandya has only had 9 innings due to injury in the middle of the season. He has 151 runs with a strike rate of 136.

Bowling

Mitchell McClenaghan is Mumbai's leading wicket taker with 19. He has been expensive going at 9.4 an over. He has been opening the bowling with Lasith Malinga. Malinga has 10 wickets but has also been expensive going at 9.1 an over.

Jasprit Bumrah has been excellent for Mumbai all season. He is particularly good in the death overs. He has 15 wickets with an economy rate of 7.8. The final seamer in the side is Hardik Pandya. He has 6 wickets and has gone at 8.4 an over.

Krunal Pandya is back from injury. He is Mumbai's leading spinner with 10 wickets. He has an economy rate of 6.6 an over. Karn Sharma was picked above Harbhajan Singh. Sharma is a more attacking bowler. The wrist spinner has 9 wickets from 7 matches with an economy rate of 8 runs an over. Harbhajan Singh is much more economical going at 6.5 runs an over. Harbhajan should play to add experience and control to the team in this big match.

Kolkata Knight Riders

Batting

KKR have been opening recently with Chris Lynn and Sunil Narine. Narine has 214 runs with a strike rate of 178. Lynn has 291 from just 6 innings with a strike rate of 188.

Gautam Gambhir has opened for much of the season whilst Chris Lynn was injured. He is KKR's top run scorer with 485 runs with a strike rate of 130. He scored 31 from 18 balls batting at 4 in the 6 over chase against SRH on Wednesday morning.

Robin Uthappa usually bats at 3 or 4. He has 387 runs with a strike rate of 167. He missed some matches due to injury late in the season. Since returning he has been poor scoring 0, 2 and 1.

Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan and Colin de Grandhomme play in the middle order. Pandey was injured against SRH and replaced by Jaggi. Pandey has 396 runs for the season but has been out of form recently. Pathan has just 143 runs and de Grandhomme just 126.

Bowling

Nathan Coulter-Nile and Umesh Yadav bowled superbly against SRH. Coulter-Nile took 3 for 20 and Umesh 2 for 21. Umesh has 16 wickets with an economy rate of 8.4. Coulter-Nile now has 14 wickets from just 7 matches and has gone at 8.4 an over.

Trent Boult is the third seamer now that Chris Woakes has returned to England. Boult has 5 wickets from 6 matches. He has been more expensive than the other two seamers going at 9.2 an over.

Sunil Narine is KKR's most economical spinner. He has 10 wickets and has gone at 7.1 an over. Kuldeep Yadav has 12 wickets from 11 matches with an economy rate of 8.3. He was dropped against SRH for the leg spinner Piyush Chawla. Chawla has 4 wickets from 5 matches but has been expensive going at 9.1 an over.